EXTRACTS - Why cells go bad: a new appreciation and understanding of ATP opens up an untapped avenue for fighting diabetes, cancer, aging, etc. - Andrew Kim Blog
It’s due to this line of reasoning that carbohydrates, and especially sugar and fructose, have fallen by the wayside of late, driven by an irrational fear, bordering on obsessiveness, that’s evolved to where sugar is now conceived of as a toxic poison and blamed for causing diabetes, cancer, obesity, gout, etc. (Thank you Dr. Lustig).
It’s important to point out that sugar is used by virtually every cell in the body to generate energy, or ATP. The brain is especially reliant on glucose for optimal functioning: The brain represents only 2 percent of the body’s total weight yet accounts for 15 percent of the body’s total energy expenditure. 1 Indeed, the brain is a voracious sugar guzzler, and sugar, not ketone bodies, is its preferred fuel source, despite popular discourse to the contrary. Insulin and sugar make us smarter 2 so it stands to reason that ketosis has the opposite effect.
If we were to accept the theory of Warburg and others, that a high efficiency of energy generation determines structure, and that structure in turn, namely of the protein complexes of the respiratory chain, determines how we produce energy—via respiration or fermentation—then, glucose, oxygen, and insulin are the fundamental factors that make up the provision of support against cancer formation; high fat diets (and diabetes) would tend to promote it.
In reality, sugar, in the form of fruit promotes respiration and, in part through insulin, is protective against diabetes and cancer. Fruit supplies other nutrients that support respiration, including magnesium, potassium, vitamin B1, and vitamin c, which also promotes the absorption of iron in the intestines. Carbohydrates, in general, suppress the liberation of fatty acids and amino acids, and inhibit the production of ketone bodies and glucose in the liver, all of which prevent the oxidative metabolism of glucose via the PDH complex, and interfere with the delicately poised state of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Fructose, which is present in fruit but not starches, stimulates the synthesis of cholesterol more than any other single nutrient, and this means that ubiquinone would almost assuredly be produced in the amounts needed by cells.
Insulin, glucose, and oxygen the fundamental factors that make up our resistance to stress and illnesses. There are issues inherent in the excessive oxidation of fatty acids in preference to glucose, which is beyond the scope of this post. (Though Danny Roddy laid out the differences between the two here.) Briefly, glucose oxidation, more than fatty acid oxidation, supports a highly energized cellular state, per Dr. Gilbert Ling’s vision of cell physiology, and this in turn establishes a firmer connection between energy generation and structure, allowing cells—and by extension people—to exist at the highest possible state of functioning, refinement, complexity.
Hey AnotherOne, According to Warburg's theory, a cancer cell couldn't revert back to a normal cell; it would be like trying to unscramble an egg. The idea that cancer cells survive on sugar is true per se, I guess, but cancer cells will also convert other substrates into glucose when the supply of glucose is abruptly cut off. So if a person with cancer were to embark on a ketogenic diet, the cancer cells would increasingly consume the body's proteins, namely glutamate, to make glucose, accelerating cachexia. I don't think complete fasting can be compared to ketogenic dieting, as there are important differences between the two. (I think I'll write a post on this as it seems to engender a lot of confusion.)
"Warburg also noted that the availability of blood sugar (in the presence of insulin) had no effect on the growth or survival of tumors,'''"
Andrew, I think this is your best post so far.
Ironically, last night I watched a documentary called "Cut, Poison, Burn" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09wFl4VS-RY ) about the futility and dangers of the current standard cancer treatments of surgery, chemo and radiation. It is a shame that science has veered so far off course with regard to cancer and other metabolic diseases such as diabetes.
Fear of cancer was the impetus for my brief stint with Paleo. But I felt so terrible on a low carb diet, I decided that even if sugar did cause cancer and other diseases, I would rather enjoy a shorter life eating food that makes me feel energized than living a longer life feeling fatigued and stressed.
Currently, the ketogenic diet is popular as a cancer treatment. The premise is that cancer cells prefer sugar so they can be starved to death by radically decreasing sugar and protein while eating mostly fat.
If cancer cells cannot be controlled by reducing sugar, then why are some people experiencing success with the ketogenic diet? Is it possible that temporarily decreasing sugar and protein allows the body to more effectively eliminate or repair damaged cells?
Water fasting is an example of a high fat ketogenic diet in which the body burns it's own fat and many people have removed or shrunken tumors and normalized blood sugar with fasting. So maybe the ketogenic diet is a more tolerable form of fasting?